


Pieces of Perfection

by messyfeathers



Series: You Are Safe Now. [5]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers for Episode 43, and then a happy ending, description of wounds and their treatment, vague mentions of intended violence, visitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messyfeathers/pseuds/messyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No pet is perfect.  No person is perfect.  Nothing is perfect until you learn to accept it for what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of Perfection

**Author's Note:**

> Visitor made me really sad, so I wrote this to go with it. And it helped.

Cecil was already at the animal clinic by the time Carlos showed up.  The vet tech directed the scientist into a little back room lined with kennels of healing animals of all shapes, sizes, and levels of existence.  In the center of the room on the metal exam table lay a little lump of obsidian fur recognizable only as Khoshekh by the row of deadly indigo spines protruding along his back.  Mangled and tattered as he looked, there was comfort in the steady rise and fall of the iridescent scales along his stomach.  Cecil didn’t look up at the scientist’s arrival, but instead continued tenderly stroking the soft patches of fur behind Khoshekh’s ears.  

“Is he going to be okay?” Carlos asked as he carefully approached the table.  

“The vet says he should make it through alright.  The anesthesia is taking a long time wearing off though.”  Cecil shifted at the table to make room for his boyfriend beside him.  Carlos hesitated briefly before reaching out and softly petting the little patch of fur that looked the least threatening.  In all the research he had done on the animal, he had never actually touched Khoshekh before.  When he was conscious and floating, the cat seemed a bit too threatening.  Unconscious and tethered by gravity, he just seemed broken.  “You don’t have to be afraid,” Cecil stated simply after a while.  

“I’m not afraid when he’s asleep.”  Cecil shot him a knowing glance.

“That’s not what I meant.  I’m guessing you heard the show.  That _thing_ threatened someone I care about, Carlos.  You don’t ever have any cause to be afraid of me.”  Cecil paused for a moment with his eyes fixed on the floor, then went back to watching Khoshekh for signs of movement.

“I’m not-” Carlos replied shakily, biting down on his lip before he could do something even more unconvincing like stutter.  It was true that he wasn’t _afraid_ of Cecil, but it was hard to not be shaken when his boyfriend had announced his intent to beat something to death with a hammer to the entire town in a radio broadcast.  The fact that the creature was a robot brought about a whole slew of questions of sentience and the definition of life and a hundred other things Carlos didn’t want to consider, but it was not nearly as important as the fact that Cecil hadn’t known at the time that the animal _wasn’t_ fully alive and cognizant of pain.  

The scientist eyed his boyfriend, discreetly taking in all the little details with which he had become so familiar.  Sometimes it was hard to remember that the violence and darkness was just as much a part of Cecil as the adorable way he would absently touch the tip of his nose when he was focusing intently on crosswords or the particular color of blush to his cheeks every time he kissed Carlos goodbye on the front step of the lab after lunch dates.  It was so easy to forget until he would be slipping a little love note into the pocket of Cecil’s bag and find the handgun that permanently resided there, or until he noticed Cecil surveying a foreign room for all possible exits prior to stepping through the door.  Just like every child who had been raised in the dangers of the desert, he had deadly aim with a bullet and a knowledge of how to turn the mundane objects in any environment into an incapacitating weapon.  

The techniques taught to Night Valians as children were how he had survived into adulthood, and could very well be how any of them would survive this war.  If it weren’t for Tamika and her child army taking down more Strexcorp helicopters every day, Night Vale would have already been long gone.  Carlos always tried to remind himself of this when he would begin to worry.  Survival was a skill embedded into every citizen of Night Vale.  It was simply instinct.  Today, instinct had saved Khoshekh’s life.  

The anesthesia had only just begun to wear off when the vet tech returned to the room to announce they were doing the nighttime feedings and closing for the day.  Cecil promised to return in the morning before they left for home.  As soon as they were through the door of the house, Carlos insisted on looking at Cecil’s leg regardless of his protests that it was fine.  In the bathroom, Carlos perched him on the edge of the bathtub and took a deep breath before rolling up the rent fabric that was once his pant leg.  The deep breath proved useless as all the air was expelled sharply from his lungs as soon as he saw the four perfect semicircles of puncture wounds and the deep violet of the swollen skin between.  The lab was home to lots of minor accidents and injuries, so he was able to quickly recover his composure.  “This next part might hurt a bit,” Carlos warned as he gently cleaned the dried streaks of blood from the tight, waxy skin with a rag.  Cecil flinched slightly as the peroxide fizzed in the wounds, but otherwise remained still.  His eyes were glassy and unfocused, suggesting that his thoughts were somewhere far away.  The ointment was applied and a gauzy bandage wrapped around the wound to keep out any infection.  “All done,” Carlos said finally, breaking the long silence that had filled the entirety of the process.  Cecil blinked once, wiped a sleeve of his jacket across his cheek, and looked up at Carlos with a falsely cheery smile.  “Let’s go for a drive,” the scientist suggested unexpectedly.  He wasn’t exactly sure where they would go; all he knew was that he needed to get Cecil out of whatever space the day had pushed him into.  

Their destination turned out to be the scrublands on the edge of town where the sun was setting in shades of crimson and gold.  Carlos turned up the radio to a country station and rolled down the windows before climbing out of the car.  “Did you get into trouble for what you said on your show?” he asked as he pushed himself up onto the hood of his car next to his boyfriend.  Cecil shook his head dismissively.  

“Lauren and Daniel were both probably powered down or gone by the time I left.  There’s someone new at work though,” he said quietly.  His eyes didn’t leave the fiery display over the horizon as he continued.  “I need you to know so you don’t get caught off-guard.  He looks like me, but his eyes are black.  He’s from Desert Bluffs.”  

“Kevin?” Carlos had kept careful notes from the sandstorm incident and pored over them frequently in the past few weeks.  Cecil nodded.  

“He’s already doing segments on my show.  Management wants me to cooperate with him.”  He let out a miffed breath.  “They’re taking everything I guess.  They’re taking my show, they’re taking the town, and I guess I never thought they would, but they almost took Khoshekh.  I suppose the smiling god prefers inhuman perfection,” he spat.  With a sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder.  “What are we going to do?”  The venom and anger at the day’s events had abandoned his voice, leaving the words small and vulnerable.  This was Cecil too - the messy bits that were so carefully kept from the world behind a calm exterior.  Every once in a while the surface would shatter and Carlos could see just how afraid and insecure and broken Cecil really was on the inside.  It was a part of him just as much as the compassion and the kindness, just as much as the anger and the darkness.  As dissonant as the different pieces all seemed, Carlos knew they were all Cecil - all _his_ Cecil.  The incongruities were part of why he loved him.  So he put his arm around Cecil’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.  

“We’re going to be okay.  That’s what we’re going to do.  Tamika’s got this, and we...well, we’ve got Tamika.  We’re helping her and the kids all we can, and for now that's enough," Carlos said with as much conviction as he could manage.  Cecil nodded as he sat up.

“What would I do without you?” he asked with a genuine little smile.  

“Well, you’d fit better on the hood of this car for one thing.”  The comment was successful in its attempt at getting Cecil to laugh.  “I’m serious, why did we bring my car when it’s half the size of yours?” Carlos asked with a grin as he squirmed against the smooth, sloping metal.  Cecil tucked his hair behind his ear and leaned back against the scientist’s shoulder again.  Out of habit Carlos placed a hand gently on Cecil’s knee.  “We’re going to be just fine.  We _all_ will,” he reassured him as they watched the last bits of sunlight die beneath the horizon and moonlight slowly creep in to take its place in the void.  

**Author's Note:**

> I think all the different sides of Cecil get overlooked so often (especially by me), but all his complexity is what makes him compelling and realistic. So I really wanted to focus a bit on that, and I'm hoping it came across well. Comments and critique are welcome as always!


End file.
